Thedebate in the Duma on the interpellation of the
Social-Democrats and Trudoviks concerning the tsarist government’s
violation of Article 96 of the fundamental laws is not over yet. But it has
already given such a picture of the state of affairs and the papers have
made such a noise about Stolypin’s notorious “declaration of March 31”
that it will be quite in place to dwell upon this instructive episode in
the history of the June 3 regime.

Ourgroup in the Duma was quite right in interpellating the government
about its violation of Article 96 of the fundamental laws and in speaking
to such an extent as if “in defence” of law, “in defence of
justice”, “in defence of June 3 legality”, and so on and so forth. We
say “to such an extent” because here the Social-Democrats unquestionably
undertook a complicated task requiring able handling; they were
undoubtedly wielding a double-edged weapon which with the slightest mistake
or even awkward usage might wound the bearer. To speak without metaphors,
it might imperceptibly lead the Social-Democrats astray from the policy of
class struggle to the policy of liberalism.

TheSocial-Democrats would have made such a mistake if they had spoken
purely and simply of “defending” these fundamental laws, without
explaining the special character of this “defence”. They would
have made an even greater mistake had they turned the defence of the
fundamental laws or legality in general into some sort of slogan such as
“fight for legality”—that would have been in the style of the Cadets.

Fortunately,our comrades in the Duma did neither the one nor the
other. The first speaker on the interpellation, Gegechkori, opened
expressly, with an explanation of the special
character of the Social-Democratic defence of the fundamental
laws. Gegechkori began most aptly with the denunciatory speech of Count
Bobrinsky at the Congress of the United Nobility, who with a more than
broad hint at the Social-Democrats clamoured for the “removal of these
trouble makers from the precincts of the State Duma”. “I declare,”
replied Gegechkori, “that in spite of the denunciation, in spite of
violence and threats, the group sitting within these walls will not swerve
one jot from its declared aims and objects of defending the interests of
the working class.”

Bobrinskycalled upon the government to eject from the Duma those who
are systematically agitating against June 3 legality. Gegechkori opened
with a declaration that neither violence nor threats can make the
Social-Democrats give up their activities.

Gegechkorilaid special stress on the following point:
“We, of course, are concerned less than anybody else with upholding the
prestige of the Third State Duma, if it has such a thing ...”
“it was we, opponents in principle of the existing political order, who
protested whenever the forces of reaction sought to curtail the rights of
the popular representative assembly in their own interest ...”
“when open encroachments are being made on the fundamental laws, we, the
opponents in principle of these fundamental laws, are obliged to take them
under our protection”. And at the conclusion of his speech, dissociating
himself from those who make a fetish of legality, Gegechkori said:
“If we make this interpellation, if we enter into digressions or into the
field of juridical interpretations it is only for the purpose of ex posing
once again the hypocrisy of the government” (p. 1988 of the verbatim
report)....

Gegechkorivoiced the consistently democratic, republican views of the
socialists when he said: “our laws will correspond to the interests and
requirements of the mass of the population only when they are dictated by
the direct will of the people”, and the “clamour from the
right” noted in this part of the verbatim report emphasised that the
shaft had gone home.

AnotherSocial-Democratic speaker, Comrade Pokrovsky, spoke even more
clearly and definitely in his speech, refer ring to the political
significance of the interpellation: “Let
them (the Octobrists) do this directly and openly. Let them frankly accept
the slogan of the Rights: ‘Down with the right of the popular
representative assembly, long live the ministerial antechamber!’ There is
no doubt that the majority is working to bring about a time in Russia when
constitutional illusions will completely vanish, leaving a black reality
from which the Russian people will draw the appropriate conclusions”
(quoted from the report in Rech, April 1).

Thistreatment of the whole question based on exposing the hypocrisy of
the government and the Octobrists and on destroying constitutional
illusions is the only correct Social-Democratic way of presenting the
interpellation on the violation of Article 96 of the fundamental laws in
the Third Duma. In connection with the proceedings in the Duma this is the
aspect that must be brought to the fore in our Party agitation, at labour
meetings, in our study circles and groups, and, finally, in private
conversations with workers who do not belong to any organisation. We must
explain the role of the workers’ party, which is exposing a
bourgeois Black-Hundred fraud inside the bourgeois Black-Hundred Duma
itself. Inasmuch as it was not possible in such a Duma to treat
the question with complete clarity or to state in full detail the
revolutionary Social-Democratic point of view, it is our duty to amplify
what our comrades said from the tribune of the Taurida Palace and
popularise their speeches, so that the masses can understand and appreciate
them.

Whatis the gist of the history of the violation of
Article 96? This article occurs in Chapter Nine “on laws” and specifies
the exceptions from the general rule, cases when the ordinances and
instructions of the military and naval departments are submitted
directly to the tsar without passing through the State
Duma and the Council of
State.{1} New expenditure requires grants approved by the State Duma,
that is the purport of this article.

Ayear ago the estimates of the naval general staff were being
discussed in the State Duma. A heated dispute arose as to whether the
confirmation of these estimates was subject to the jurisdiction of the
State Duma or not. The Rights (the Black Hundred) said no,
maintaining that the Duma had no right to interfere, that it could not dare
encroach
upon the prerogatives of the “imperial leader” of the armed forces, i.e.,
the tsar, who alone, independent of any Duma, had the
right to endorse the army and navy estimates.

TheOctobrists, Cadets and Lefts maintained that this was the
prerogative of the Duma. Consequently, it was a question of the Black
Hundreds headed by Nicholas H wanting to interpret restrictively the rights
of the Duma, wanting to curtail the prerogatives of the Duma which
had already been curtailed to an incredible extent. The Black-Hundred
landlords and, at their head, the richest and blackest reactionary
landlord, Nicholas Romanov, made a particular minor question into a
question of principle, a question of the prerogatives of the tsar, the
prerogatives of the autocracy, accusing the bourgeoisie (and even the
Octobrist bourgeoisie) of trying to curtail the prerogatives of the tsar,
to limit his power, “to separate the leader of the army from the army”,
and so on.

Whetherthe power of the tsar should be interpreted as absolutely
unlimited autocracy, quite in the old way, or as power with a most modest
limitation—such was the point of the dispute. And this dispute
swelled a year ago almost to the dimensions of a “political crisis”,
i.e., threats to kick out Stolypin whom the Black Hundreds accused of
“constitutionalism”, threats to dissolve the Duma of the Octobrists, whom
the Black Hundreds called “Young
Turks”.{2}

Boththe Duma and the Council of State approved the estimates of the
naval general staff, i.e., they regarded the question as coming under
their jurisdiction. Everyone waited to see whether Nicholas II would
endorse the decision of the Duma and the Council of State. On April 27,
1909, Nicholas II issued a rescript to Stolypin refusing to
endorse the estimates and charging the ministers to draw up “regulations”
on the application of Article 96.

Inother words, the tsar for the hundredth time openly and definitely
took the side of the Black Hundreds and resisted the slightest attempts to
limit his power. His instruction to the ministers to draw up new
regulations was a bare-faced order to violate the law, to
interpret it in such a way that nothing would be left of it, to
“interpret” it in the style of the notorious Russian senatorial
“interpretations”.
Of course it was specified that the regulations should remain “within the
limits of the fundamental laws”, but these words were the most obvious
hypocrisy. The ministers drew up such “regulations”—and Nicholas II
approved them (they are called the regulations of August 24, 1909, from the
date of their confirmation)—that the law was circumvented! By the
interpretation of the “regulations” endorsed without the Duma, Article 96
of the fundamental laws was reduced to nullity! By these regulations the
estimates of the army and navy were taken out of the jurisdiction
of the Duma.

Theresult was a splendid exposure of the flimsiness of the Russian
“constitution”, the brazenness of the Black Hundreds, the partiality of
the tsar towards the Black Hundreds, the flouting of the fundamental laws
by the autocracy. Of course, the illustration of this theme provided by the
coup of June 3, 1907, was a hundred times more conspicuous, complete,
intelligible and obvious to the broad masses of the people. Of course, if
our Social-Democrats in the Duma were unable to make an interpellation on
the violation of the fundamental laws by the Act of June 3 this was only
because the bourgeois democrats including the Trudoviks did not provide
enough signatures to make up the thirty names necessary for an
interpellation—it only goes to show how limited is the specifically Duma
form of propaganda and agitation. But the fact that it was impossible to
make an interpellation on the Act of June 3 did not prevent the
Social-Democrats in their speeches from constantly characterising this Act
as a coup d’état. And, as a matter of course, even on a
comparatively minor issue the Social-Democrats could not and should not
leave unexposed the manner in which the autocracy was flouting the
fundamental laws and the rights of the popular representative assembly.

Thecomparative unimportance, pettiness and insignificance of a
question like the estimates of the naval general staff, on the other hand,
very sharply emphasised the hyper sensitiveness of our
counter-revolutionaries, their nervousness about the army. In his
second speech on March 26, Mr. Shubinskoi, the Octobrist spokesman in the
Duma, made a most definite turn towards the Black Hundreds, revealing
that it was just their nervousness about the army that made the
counter-revolutionaries so extremely sensitive about permitting the
slightest interference of representative bodies in the approval of the
military and naval estimates.
The name of the Imperial Leader of the Russian Army is truly a great
name”... cried the bourgeois lackey of Nicholas the Bloody. “...Whatever
assertions you [the members of the State Duma] make here, whatever you say
about there being a desire to deprive someone of rights, you will not
deprive the army of its Imperial Leader.”

Andin his “declaration” of March 31, in which he did his best to
confuse his reply with quite empty, meaningless and patently false speeches
about “appeasement” and alleged abatement of repressions, Stolypin came
out nevertheless quite definitely on the side of the Black Hundreds
against the prerogatives of the Duma. If the Octobrists proved to
be in agreement with Stolypin, this is nothing new. But if Rech of
Milyukov and Co. calls Stolypin’s reply “if any thing, conciliatory as
regards the prerogatives of the Duma” (No. 89, April 1—editorial after
the leading article) we have before us just one more example of how low the
Cadet Party has fallen. “The history of, recent years shows,” said
Stolypin, “that the blight of revolution could not undermine our
army....” Could not undermine—this is a misstatement of facts, for the
generally known events of the soldiers’ and sailors’ mutinies in 1905–06,
the generally known opinions expressed by the reactionary press at that
time, show that the revolution was undermining and, consequently,
could undermine the army. It did not completely undermine the
army, that is true. But if at the height of the counter-revolution of 1910,
several years after the last outbreak of “unrest” among the troops,
Stolypin says (in the same declaration) that he was “possessed by an
alarming thought when he listened to several of the previous
speakers”, that this “alarming thought” consisted in an
“uneasy impression of some sort of discord among different state
elements in their attitude to our armed forces”, this gives Stolypin
away completely and the whole Black-Hundred gang at Nicholas II’s Court
together with him! It proves that the tsar and his gang not only continue
to be nervous but are still in downright trepidation about the
army. This proves
that the counter-revolution is still holding fast to the stand point of
civil war, the standpoint that the suppression of the popular indignation
by military means is an immediate and urgent need. Just consider the
following phrases of Stolypin’s:

“History... teaches that an army falls into disorder when it ceases
to be united in submission to a single sacred will. Insert into this
principle the poison of doubt, instil in the army even only fragments
of the idea that its organisation depends on collective will and its
power will no longer rest on an immutable force—supreme power.”
And in another passage: “I know, many wanted ... to excite disputes
ruinous to our army, concerning prerogatives” (namely, the
prerogatives of the Duma, the prerogatives of “collective will”).

Justas murderers are haunted by the ghosts of their victims, so do the
heroes of the counter-revolution recollect the “ruinous” influence of
“collective will” on the army. Stolypin, as a true servant of the Black
Hundreds, sees in every Octobrist a “Young Turk” working for the
“disorganisation of the army” by making it subordinate to
collective will, by permitting “fragments of the idea” about such
subordination!

Theexecutioners and assassins of the June 3 monarchy must be suffering
from hallucinations, they must have gone clean out of their minds if they
take the Octobrists for Young Turks. But these delirious fancies, these
extravagancies of the mind are a political malady engendered by a feeling
of the insecurity of their position and by acute nervousness about the
army. If these gentry, the Stolypins, Romanovs and Co. were able to view
with the slightest degree of composure the question of the relation of
“collective will” to the army they would see at once that if the tsar had
tacitly approved the decisions of the Duma and the Council of State on the
naval estimates this would have been ten times less noticeable to the
army than Duma debates on the question of the prerogatives of the
Duma, the question of the possible “disorganisation of the
army”. But it is characteristic of our counter-revolution that it
gives itself away by its fears. It is no more able to consider the
question of the disorganisation of the army calmly than a murderer can
listen calmly to talk about the participants and circumstances of the
murder he has committed.

Theprinciples involved in the comparatively small and unimportant
question of the naval estimates have been brought out by the Black
Hundreds, by Nicholas II, and by Mr. Stolypin, so that it only remains for
us to express our satisfaction at their clumsiness due to their fears. It
only remains for us to take Comrade Pokrovsky’s excellent statements about
the ending of “constitutional illusions”, about the need for the people
themselves to draw the conclusions from the undoubtedly “black reality”
and compare them with the admirably outspoken views in Moskovskiye
Vedomosti concerning the “declaration of March 31”.

Inthe leading article of April 3 this newspaper declares:

“Thematter itself, as we already explained last year,
is very simple. His Imperial Majesty did not confirm the estimates when
passed through legislative channels, but established them by an act of
supreme government for which even the existing law (apart from the natural
rights of the supreme authority) grants clear powers”....

So.So. The “natural right” of the Russian monarchy to violate the
fundamental laws. That is the whole point.

“...The Duma opposition, however, had the impertinence
to make this the occasion for an interpellation which questioned the
actions of the supreme authority.”

Exactly!Moskovskiye Vedomosti makes properly explicit what
the Social-Democrats in the Duma could not. The point of the interpellation
was to pronounce the actions of the tsar (and of Stolypin, the minister
under him) a violation of the fundamental laws.

Further,Moskovskiye Vedomosti attacks the “revolutionary
opposition” and the “revolutionary press” for their theory of
conquest of popular rights by means of a revolution and denies
that there could be any “promises” whatsoever in the “declaration of
March 31”.

“Thevery talk about ‘promises’ is ludicrous and shows to what extent
the revolution has befogged the minds even of persons not officially
belonging to the revolutionary camp. What ‘promises’ can the cabinet
give?” “... The cabinet will carry out its lawful duties, true to the
leadership of the supreme authority.... And we can only
hope that this declaration will be understood more profoundly by
the Duma in all its implications and thereby help to cure the honourable
members from the chronic infection of revolutionary ‘directives’.”

Preciselyso: more profoundly to understand the declaration
(and attitude) of the government, and through it to “cure” the
constitutional illusions—it is in this that lies the political
lesson of the Social-Democratic interpellation on the violation of
Article 96.

Notes

{1}
The Council of State—one of the supreme state bodies in
pre-revolutionary Russia. It was set up in 1810 according to the plan of
M. M. Speransky as a legislative consultative institution, the members of
which were appointed and endorsed by the tsar. By the law of February 20
(March 5), 1906, the Council of State was reorganised and given the right
to confirm or reject Bills after their discussion in the Duma. However, the
right to alter fundamental laws and to promulgate a number of particularly
important laws remained a prerogative of the tsar.

From1906 half of the members of the Council of State consisted of
elected representatives of the nobility, clergy and big bourgeoisie, and
half of the councillors were appointed by the tsar. In consequence, the
Council of State was an ultra-reactionary body, which rejected even
moderate Bills adopted by the Duma.

{2}Young Turks—the political organisation of the Turkish
bourgeoisie, founded in 1894. It sought to limit the absolute power of the
Sultan and to convert the feudal empire into a bourgeois
constitutional-monarchical state. In 1908 it headed the revolution which
made Turkey a constitutional monarchy and became the governing
party: It declared itself dissolved after Turkey’s military defeat in the
Firsts World War (in the autumn of 1918).